Changelog for 4.1

Build 810, Sep 4 2026

Release Candidate 2, a few fixes:

Fixed the iPad rotation freezes/sluggishnes.
Coming back to the app should be less choppy (still a few things to be done there).
Swipe-deleting a subtask while another one is being edited no longer leaves the deleted row on screen.
Pressing Return in the subtask editor no longer leaves a stray line break, and autocorrect changes made with Return now stick.

Build 809, Sep 3 2026

4.1 Release Candidate: the Smart Assistant lands on macOS, with Capture, Map and Hear Summary, context menu for Tasks now let you jump to where the task lives. Plus a pile of fixes!

Smart Assistant on the Mac

Capture for Mac: use Capture... in the View menu (Opt+Shift+Cmd+V). Type or paste text, or drop in an image, then review what it found into tasks, reminders and events. This one really needs Apple Intelligence on Mac.
Hear Summary now plays with proper playback controls, and a button opens the transcript.

Show in Note / List / Daily / Journal

New task context menu actions jump to wherever a task lives. Especially handy in Smart Lists, tag lists and search, where subtasks show up without their parent: Show in Note takes you straight there. Markdown tasks open their file.

Daily and Timeline

Broadsheet now respects the Day Sections setting: turn it off and timed rows collapse into a single Scheduled group.
The Timeline hides completed tasks whenever Daily hides them.
Mac: Cmd+E and Cmd+Delete now work on Timeline selections.
Multi-selection polish: picking a row commits an in-progress edit first, and selected rows highlight evenly even when dimmed.
Subtask checkmarks now give the same haptic tap as task checkmarks.

Widgets

Flipping a widget to another day no longer sticks forever: each widget size keeps its own selection, and it snaps back to today after an hour.
The small widget always opens Today when tapped.
A widget showing only reminders after launch now refetches your calendar events on its own.

Fixes

Reminder times no longer get removed after editing the reminder on another device.
New calendar events are saved in your local time zone, so a sync round trip can't shift them to another day or hour.
Fixed the Journal crash when typing the first character of a new entry.
Fixed an iPad freeze on some configs.
Typing day names like "weds" or "fri" no longer flips the input to an event; only real clock times (3pm, 15:30, noon) set a time.
Mac: fixed a crash when clicking a task pill in Weekly List or Weekly Spread.

Other

The Calendars configurator has a new help button explaining where calendars come from, with a shortcut to open the Calendar app.
Mac: the Journal add button opens the composer directly instead of a one-item menu.
Mac: better RECENT button formatting on macOS 27.
More performance work, scrolling should feel smoother (let me know).

Build 807, Aug 29 2026

iOS 27 is almost here, so getting 4.1 ready for the new foldy phones. Some neat changes in this build: multi-selection lands in Daily and Broadsheet, pick a bunch of tasks and complete, move, tag or delete them in one go, with Undo. Keyboard people get Cmd+E and Cmd+Delete on whatever row you're hovering. Also a big improvement to iCloud sync speed.

Multi-selection

Mac and iPad with a pointer: Cmd-click rows to pick them, Shift-click for a range, Shift+Cmd+A selects the whole day.
iPhone and iPad touch: two-finger tap a row to start selecting, then plain taps pick more (feedback appreciated!). Select is also in each row's context menu.
A selection bar appears above the week strip with Move (to a day, or Unschedule), Tag (add or remove per tag), and Delete button.
Selection sticks around as you flip days, so you can act on selections spread across days. Switching tabs clears it.
Right-click a selected row for the same actions as a menu.
Batch tagging covers subtasks, habits and markdown tasks too.

Keyboard (Mac and iPad)

Cmd+E opens the editor for the row you're hovering, typing in, or have selected. Cmd+Return while typing a title does the same.
Cmd+Delete deletes the hovered or selected row, with Undo. Habits get skipped for the day instead.
Both work on Broadsheet rows too.

Day Notes

The day note composer is now a light markdown editor on both iOS and macOS: lists and checkboxes auto-continue, tappable checkboxes, rendered preview when idle. iOS gets the formatting bar above the keyboard, Mac gets it at the bottom. Press Return on an empty line to dismiss editing.

Week bar (Mac and iPad)

A standalone TODAY button sits beside the week strip while you're viewing another day, and turns into the Customize Layout button on Daily when you're on today. Replaces the toolbar Today button and the floating customize glyph.
iPad in landscape or split view now uses the same inline bar as the Mac.

Other

Another large fix for iCloud sync speed, let me know how you find it.
Journal: the completed-tasks Settings toggle moved from Customize to Settings -> Journal, alongside the per-list exclusion setting.
Onboarding: a Skip ahead link on the first page for returning users.
Emptying the Trash with thousands of items is now much faster.
Mac full screen: the day masthead no longer clips under the toolbar.
Mac: nicer formatting for Daily task input row.
Support emails now carry a compact diagnostic tag in the subject line so I can see version, OS and sync health at a glance. Get at it from About.

Build 806, Aug 27 2026

Lots of plumbing work: sketches and journal photos move to a new synced attachment storage with far higher quality and size limits, with sketches getting the modern PaperKit engine on iOS 26 and show up on the Mac for the first time. Plus a bunch of performance improvements that should benefit macOS the most.

Sketches and Photos

Photos and sketches are now saved as synced attachments with much higher size limits.
Drawings now use Apple's modern PaperKit engine on iOS 26 and later: shapes, text boxes, and stickers right on the canvas.
Sketches now show on the Mac as a preview in the note editor.
New Journal photos are stored at much higher quality.
Fixed a sketch synced from another device showing as an empty canvas in the Daily composer, and a crash when adding the first sketch to a note.

Performance

Cold launch should stutter noticeably less in the first couple of seconds.
Mac: improvements to sidebar navigation speed.
Planner remembers your scroll position between tab switches.
Smart Lists reopens on the preset you last picked (default is now Due Today).
Timeline should scroll smoother right after flipping days.
Adding tasks renders faster, and tabs and Planner feel more responsive.

Daily Tab

World Clock now shows on every day, not just today.
Broadsheet gets the globe icon to edit World Clocks.
Clocks now follow your device 12/24-hour setting.

Calendars & Planner

Yearly Planner now shows event markers on past days.
Bookmark Bar: Solo mode greys out hidden calendars instead of removing them, tap one to end Solo. The SOLO tab always shows while Solo is on.

Tags

Custom color now opens the system color picker from a real button (also in Settings -> Tags).
Tag chips in your tabs repaint immediately when you recolor or rename a tag.

Menu bar (Mac)

The Task/Reminder/Calendar picker now leads the quick-entry row as a checkbox chip, so the capture type is obvious.

Other

In markdown files, the + Tag pill is now a menu offering your existing Finalist tags and the tags used across the folder, plus Add Tag.
Subtasks and note tasks in Smart Lists inherit their root task's date.
App Sections without a visible tab now sit at the top App Menu (iOS), instead of under Sections menu.
Customize: tab option popovers open upward, and minimized events show a compact time on the rail.
Timeline hides the minimap when your dated work spans a single day.
Siri phrases for Quick Add, Today, Tomorrow and Journal were missing on iOS 26 in Build 805, fixed.

Build 805, Aug 21 2026

A few overdue cleanups: Tags got an overhaul with new colors and a workspace to do stuff like time tracking, with Habits and Journal also getting a proper refresh. Plus for iOS 27: a full-page day widget!

Tags

The Tags sheet is now a two-page mini workspace: an index of all your tags, and a page per tag showing tag usage details, the Score goals it feeds, and the latest things tagged.
A basic Time Spent report on each tag's page: minutes attributed to the tag over the last 7/30/90/365 days or a custom range. It counts completed tasks with a length, habits, events, and penciled blocks. Feedback welcome on best formats to allow this data to be exported.
Tag colors are now a palette of twenty inks, tuned to stay readable in light and dark. There is also a custom color picker.

Habits

Tapping a habit now opens a proper summary page, with cleaned up schedule, streak stats, and calendars, with editor on the second tab.
Some fixes to counting: streaks are now recomputed so a lapsed habit drops to zero and your best streak self-corrects. Weekly habits count streaks in weeks.
Habit rows in Daily show the current streak as tiny checkmarks.

Journal

Journal tab features have been growing over the years so it was also due for a cleanup.
Workouts logged from Health now bring their GPS route along, letting you see mini maps of your runs/walks.
Workouts you haven't logged will be offered as tap-to-add pills on their day.
Add button menu gains Add Workout and Check In Location on Today.

Widgets

New full-page Day Page widget: heavily inspired by macOS menu bar app, and the new Weekly Spread planner. Built for the new extra-large widget size on iOS 27, and you can also use it for the old Large size via Edit Widget.
Tinted and clear widget rendering got a proper refresh.

Calendars

Events from switched-off calendars are no longer loaded at all (they no longer fire Finalist notifications either).
Hide Duplicate Events now only collapses copies across different calendars, and only ones you can see.
Re-enabling a calendar restores it inside Bookmark Bar if it was there before.
A few fixes to make sure notifications are properly scheduled.

Timeline

Double-click a block on the Mac to open it in the editor.
Habits and markdown tasks placed on the grid draw as ordinary blocks now, not pencil drafts (since they cannot be "Accepted").
Hold Option key to get 5-minute snap on the hover line and rail taps.

Menu bar (Mac)

The panel returns to today after the day rolls over (or after four idle hours).
Deleted tasks no longer linger in the panel or in widget snapshots.

Apple Watch

Fixes to Snooze on watch rows.
Reminders can be rescheduled (Tomorrow, In 10 minutes) right from the watch.
Pinned lists get the same tap model as day rows: checkbox completes with a short undo window, title opens actions.

Notes

A markdown file with a date in its filename now shows up on that day in Daily's Notes section, no pinning needed.
Fixed navigation of sub-notebooks on iPhone.

Planner

Nicer Layout picker you can swipe, and layout options cleaned up.
Yearly Planner can now load earlier months.

Fixes and smaller things

Daily with Day Sections off: hiding Scheduled no longer blanks out other sections, and reordering no longer stamps 00:00 on tasks.
Hear Summary can share the briefing audio, not just the transcript.
Fixed a crash when opening a section from the Sections menu.
Edits made in Weekly Spread show up on the pills right away.
Fixed Markdown Settings tag filter to allow multiple tags, not be case-sensitive, and rescan for tasks after text entry.

Build 804, Aug 17 2026

More tweaks and polish, including proper text size control in Settings (really needed for macOS). In unrelated news, Finalist just got featured in the US store :)

Timeline

Multi-select: tap blocks to build up a selection (Shift or Cmd-click on Mac), then shift the whole group at once with the -15m/+15m/+1h bar, or drag any member to move the group together, gaps preserved. Right-click on group for the same options in a menu.
Reminders with a due time can now be resized: drag the bottom handle to give one a duration. And reminders without a duration draw as slim spot markers at their due time instead of pretend 30-minute blocks.
Context menus get Complete and Uncomplete buttons, and a new Unschedule inside Reschedule that removes task or event time (date stays).
On the Mac, hold Option while dragging to snap in 5-minute steps instead of quarter hours.

Text size

You can now bump up (or down) text size via Settings -> General, and it reaches most of the app: Broadsheet, Daybook, Timeline, every Planner mode, Journal, Lists, Notes. This is actually an old setting from version 2, but had to be thoroughly updated for version 4, so let me know which corner of the app escaped it!

Weekly Spread

iPhone Weekly layout gets some wayfinding tweaks: page dots, tappable day tabs along the fold to jump to the other half of the week.
Opening Weekly now scrolls to today's page, if below fold.
Tasks in Weekly have context menus now, and the day menu moved to the date gutter.
Layout picker cards gained one-line descriptions.

Apple Watch

New tap model on task rows: tap checkbox to complete (tap again to undo, before it disappears), tapping the title opens quick actions. Long press menu still works.
Pinned Reminders lists now show their entries on the watch (they arrived empty before).

Daily

Broadsheet now honors the sort-completed-to-bottom setting. This seting is in Customize Layout: Tasks section options.
Newly added tasks animate in instead of snapping into place (Broadsheet and Daybook).
Fixed the Day Note composer blanking out when a second note was added to the same day.
Fixed wide Daily dumping every task into the All Day column when Day Sections is off.

Fixes and smaller things

Smart Lists refresh when you complete a task in them, and the chip counts stay current.
Planner: hiding a calendar's all-day events no longer hides its timed events too.
Fixed a short hang when switching to the Lists tab on the Mac.
Fixed some Notes elements opening Daily instead of the correct destination.
More consistent display of weather in Daily header.
Disabling a calendar also removes it from the Bookmark bar.
Clearer layout of calendars in Calendar sheet.
Deleting a habit now asks for confirmation.
Fixed Swipe-to-delete button color.

Build 803, Aug 13 2026

Planner is getting an overhaul with the new Weekly Spread mode, a bunch of Siri AI stuff or iOS 27 and Score grows goal management and a History view

Planner

New Planner mode Weekly Spread: your week as a paper planner spread, Monday to Wednesday on the left page, Thursday to Sunday on the right. iPad and Mac show the open spread and flip whole weeks, iPhone turns one page at a time.
New visual layout picker.
New Content tab in the picker: hide or show all kinds of content (tasks, reminders, habits, markdown tasks, calendar events, all-day events, weather) in any Planner mode.
You can now also show Weather for each Planner layout.

Siri and Spotlight (iOS 27)

If you're on the iOS 27 beta: Siri and Apple Intelligence can now manage Finalist directly (more or less). Create, update, complete, and delete tasks, create and edit notes, and manage calendar events, all conversationally. Say "Add a task in Finalist" and Siri asks what, or say the whole thing in one sentence and it goes right in.
Finalist also donates interactions to Siri, so if you're an active Finalist user, you don't even have to say "Finalist", as it knows which app you use.
Tasks and notes now show up in Spotlight, so Siri can find them if you ask to search, and open one by name.
Widgets update right away after Siri makes a change.
A few old phrases (Add to Today, Add to Date) were retired so they don't hijack the new flow. This whole area needs iOS 27, so if you're on the beta let me know how you find it.

Score

You can now manage Score goals: both from the Daily section's goal rows, and a manage row in the week sheet. The goal editor got a redesign too.
New History tab next to Week: half a year of week-by-week results, your average against the target, streaks, best week, and a bar graph.
Completed Reminders now also earn points, joining tasks, habits, journals, and markdown tasks. Remember they have to be tagged with your goal tag.
On the Mac, Score opens in real windows instead of sheets.

Fixes and smaller things

Important calendar fix: Show as All-Day will no longer change the underlaying calendar event (it wasn't supposed to but in some cases it did).
Improved Apple Watch complications.
An expanded free-time stretch in the Timeline now stays open while you add or resize blocks inside it.
Fixed dragging Timeline blocks.
The Notebooks section on the Notes home can now collapse, like Recent, and remembers your choice.
List tag counts now include reminders.
Apple Watch lists no longer show pinned notes.
Fixed Notes section navigation on iOS.
World clocks in the wide layout headers show properly now.

Build 802, Aug 11 2026

Phew, the launch is behind us, welcome to 4.1 beta :)
Some new features and a bunch of fixes:

Day Notes and Sketches

Daily's Notes section will now give you a permanent place to start adding notes anytime. Just start typing and it becomes today's note, no buttons involved. Emptying it out cleans the note up again.
Tap the pencil tab to sketch instead: draw with Apple Pencil or a finger, right inside Daily. Sketches save with the day's note and can be shared as images.
A resize button opens full-screen editing for text or ink. With Pencil, squeeze over the canvas to go full screen, double-tap to flip to the eraser.
Sketches show up in the note editor too, with share and delete per sketch.
This is brand new, feedback very much appreciated!

Score

Here's a feature that kept me motivated to do marketing chores while working on Finalist 4.0. Score is an opt-in Daily section that turns a week of scattered effort into one number. Set point values for tags (say a social post is 1 point, a blog post is 5), set a weekly target and try to hit your goal every week. It works when completing tasks and habits, but also simply journaling with that tag will give you credit. Turn it on in Customize Layout. This feature can grow in many ways, let me know what you think.
Completed tasks in your markdown files count toward Score too (they need a done date).

Broadsheet and Daybook

The wide Broadsheet masthead now rides up into the title bar when the space is free.
Polish on the Outstanding section, the move-tasks prompt, and Daybook's masthead.

Fixes and smaller things

New Ivory and Ink theme.
A big performance review of Daily tab.
Journal entries no longer show twice when the Journal section and the timeline are both visible.
The timeline's hover ghost now lines up exactly with the slot it names.
Pencil squeeze outside the timeline no longer pops the old default-tag card. Squeeze is timeline-only now (radial palette).
On wide Daily, the Customize Layout button moved to the bottom-right corner of the window, out of the footer's way.
Using keyboard shortcuts to navigate date Cmd+Option+Left/Right now work inside macOS Menu Bar app too